There seems to be an issue whereby, despite sharing the exact same initiative and, in this instance, being vastly outvalued, Thieves get priority over Clippers if there's enough to steal 100% of the FI present.

No idea how it works really, but it looks unfair to me. Basically, it seems as though the Clippers actually think that they have an initiative of 7+ and wait politely for the Thieves to finish before they try and join in.

Hi all,
It's been brought to our attention that this round's stats did not take into consideration an old combat engine bug.
In a small minority of combat cases, this could cause a confusing combat outcome. To better-reflect how the combat engine works, we've updated the initiative of the Clipper to init 7.

There will be no other changes or similar at this point in time. Apologies for any confusion this may have caused.

This doesn't resolve the underlying problem though. The response itself is annoying.

'[A]n old combat engine bug' - if it's that old and a bug, fix it please. Does the same occur with kill ships sharing an initiative? If not, why not? If not, fix this please.

'In a small minority of combat cases' - this would be more common than that. Virtually every time the two fought on the same side and where there were sufficient Thieves to fully steal the opposing FI fleet.

'[T]his could cause a confusing combat outcome' - I've spoken with a few people about it and we're not confused about it we're saying it's not right. If two ships share an initiative then the outcome should not be based on some racist list that prioritises Zik over Etd for no justifiable reason.

'To better-reflect how the combat engine works' - it doesn't work, that's the point, and you just said it was a bug.

Is it just tough luck for any Clipper fleets that have attacked or defended this past week only to get nothing bar a bit of salvage if enough Thieves were present?